Current. Inspired. Yours.

Welcome to The Wanderer’s #YEGWiB Project | By Blue Knox

To The City of Edmonton and Our Readers,

The day has finally come to reveal the final Wanderer Online #YEG 100 Women in Business Project. As a student of the University of Alberta, and as an Edmontonian, I could not be more proud to be celebrating the incredible women on this list.

In this list you will find inspiring women from diverse backgrounds — big business, small business, for-profit and not-for-profit — whose leadership, community involvement, and business management have been a part of making Edmonton one of the greatest cities in this country.

-Inspiration-

For two years I worked at a restaurant in Edmonton’s downtown called Lux Steakhouse and Bar. My supervisor there, and the restaurant’s manager, Jillian Domes, is one of the most incredible women I’ve met in my life. She was not only my supervisor, she was – and still is – my role model and mentor. Those who have worked with her for many years will know what I mean when I say that Jill embodies dedication — to her friends, her family, her employees, her customers, and her city. Those who frequent Lux can tell you stories of her hospitality and hard work, and those who have worked under her leadership have felt how she genuinely cares about her employees. Jill is the kind of woman who I hope to be like one day. I look up to her, and am so inspired by her positivity. She is a woman who is building community, is respected by her colleagues, and is driven to strengthen her business.

Emerson Csorba (The Wanderer’s Editor-in-Chief) and I were discussing our mentors, what makes Edmonton’s business community unique, and what was missing. Wouldn’t it be incredible if we could celebrate the women that stand out in Edmonton’s business community? We wanted to ask Edmontonians several questions: which Edmontonian women in business inspire you? Who are your role models, your coworkers, your supervisors, your friends, your family? In part, this was selfish: we wanted to see who inspired our community, so that through their nominations, we too could be inspired. We were not disappointed.

-Celebrating Women in Business-

The goal of this project, from the outset, has been to celebrate the phenomenal women in business in this city. There is no award, or sponsorship. The people who have worked so hard to bring this list together are all volunteers who poured their hearts, souls, and time into creating a project that would inspire pride in Edmontonians, and show our readers what an incredible city we live in through its female business leaders.

The Wanderer is a student-based, creative, long-form journalism initiative, started at the University of Alberta and run entirely by volunteers. We wanted to take a creative approach and do what hadn’t been done before in Edmonton. While we recognize that there is a very clear difference between those who manage/operate not-for-profits, and entrepreneurs, we wanted to appreciate those differences yet open our project to include not-for-profits. We believe that a successful not-for-profit requires similar skills as it takes to run a for-profit business.

We opened the project up to public nominations in order to extend the project’s reach as far as possible.We then took the nominations and brought them before our Advisory Committee. We then asked our Advisory Committee to recommend which candidates should make the final 100 based on the following: business reach, business development, innovation in business, leadership, and community outreach. The Executive Committee then decided the final 100 based off of that advice.

-Thank You-

I speak for myself and the entire team who has worked on this project when I say thank you to the entire City of Edmonton. I do not know of a single other city where it would be possible for a couple of twenty somethings to bring to life an idea as big as this.

Some of Edmonton’s greatest leaders in business and the community met with us, mentored us, and served on our Executive and Advisory Committees, all because they wanted to see this project succeed. Thank you for your open minds, your open hearts, and your enthusiasm for our project. From project inception, to planning, to implementation and consultation, this has been one of the greatest learning experiences of our lives. Thank you to the City of Edmonton for being the kind of city that fosters such incredible female leaders in business, both for-profit and not-for-profit. To the women on this list, thank you for all you have done to make this city’s business, and not-for-profit community, as well as the greater City of Edmonton, stronger.

I now hope you will enjoy this project keeping in mind the spirit in which it was created. A student initiative, inspired by mentorship and leadership, to celebrate 100 incredible women who have worked hard and inspired their colleagues and community through their business (for-profit and not-for-profit organizations), and to show just how amazing the City of Edmonton really is.